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Advertising is meant to persuade, and the themes and techniques of that persuasion reveal a part of the nation's history. The Museum has preserved advertising campaigns for several familiar companies, such as Marlboro, Alka-Seltzer, Federal Express, Cover Girl, and Nike. It also holds the records of the NW Ayer Advertising Agency and business papers from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Carvel Ice Cream, and other companies. The Warshaw Collection of Business Americana comprises thousands of trade cards, catalogs, labels, and other business papers and images dating back to the late 1700s.

Beyond advertising campaigns, the collections encompass thousands of examples of packaging, catalogs, and other literature from many crafts and trades, from engineering to hat making. The collections also contain an eclectic array of advertising objects, such as wooden cigar-store Indians, neon signs, and political campaign ads.

This is a cast iron figure in the shape of Mr. Peanut®, the Planters® Nut and Chocolate Company spokes character. This object weighs over 300lbs and was placed on a fence post surrounding the Planters® factory in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The Planters® company has been using Mr. Peanut® as their trademark since 1916 when they held a contest asking participants to draw a logo they thought best represented the company. A young school boy, Antonio Gentile, drew the winning character, a peanut with arms, legs and in some instances a cane performing different tasks. The drawings were refined by a graphic artist, a top hat, monocle and spats were added and Mr. Peanut® was born.

Planters® was founded in 1906 by Amedeo Obici and his partner, Mario Peruzzi in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Obici got his start working at a local store selling peanuts, before casting out on his own, selling nuts from a cart. Two years later, they incorporated the business as Planters® Nut and Chocolate Company. They eventually moved to Suffolk, Virginia to be closer to the peanut farms. In 1961, the company was sold to Standard Brands, which merged with Nabisco in 1981. In 2000, Kraft Foods acquired Nabisco, but the Planters® brand is still in use today (2014).

This is a ceramic cookie or candy jar with a lid made to look like a cooking stove. Both sides of the base have “m&m’s” in raised red letters, the front is painted to look like a window on an oven, and the lid has two molded figures that look like a red and yellow “m&m’s” who are looking at a pot of chocolate. The cookie jar was made for Mars, Inc.

Mars, Inc. was started by Frank C. Mars in 1911 in Takoma, Washington. Frank’s first venture failed within a short while and he moved back to Minnesota where he started again in 1920 with another candy factory, which was incorporated in 1929 as Mars, Inc. This time, with the help of his son, Forrest Mars, Sr., the business took off. In 1923, they introduced the Milky Way® which became an instant success. In 1941, the company released m&m’s® first as a military ration during WWII, but later the candy was advertised to moms as the candy that “melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” Over the years, Mars, Inc. has diversified its holdings to include chocolate and candy, pet food, food staples and Wrigley’s™ gum. Mars, Inc. is still 100% family owned, currently run by the grandchildren of Frank Mars. It has grown to an international multi-billion dollar company, employing at least 72,000 people worldwide (2013).

This is a white plush toy dog represents an English Bull Terrier named Arielle. Arielle quickly became popular among Target customers when introduced in 1999 by the Target Corporation in their advertising campaigns. The dog has a red bullseye, the Target logo, circling one of its eyes and has a red collar and red ears.

In 1902, George Draper Dayton purchased the Reuben Simon Goodfellow Company and started the Dayton Dry Goods Company, changing the name in 1911 to the Dayton Company. By the 1920s, he had a built a multi-million dollar business. In the 1960s, a senior executive for the company started developing the concept of an upscale discount retailer, which would later be named “Target.” The first Target store opened in 1962 in Roseville, Minnesota. Four stores opened that year and the company posted losses for the first few years. By 1965, the stores started turning a profit and ushered in an era of expansion of the Target concept. As of 2014, Target stores can be found in 49 states as well as Canada with Vermont being the lone holdout.

Spokes characters became the face of national brands, beginning in the 1890s. By the 20th century, they pitched all kinds of products and asked consumers to buy based on emotion. Manufacturers and advertisers created characters to give products friendly faces, connect with consumers through humor, reach younger audiences, and build brand loyalty. Many of these characters became so popular that the parent companies gave them as premiums and made them into licensed products. A few even got their own comic strips, games, and, later, television shows.

This promotional short sleeve MTV® t shirt is from the early days of the music channel. The “M” is in yellow, while the “TV” is written in red on the front of the shirt, with “MUSIC TELEVISION™” written underneath. This t shirt was made prior to MTV® dropping “music television” from its logo in February 2010.

MTV® officially launched on August 1, 1981 to a limited market. Through aggressive and innovative marketing techniques, staff were able to quickly popularize the fledgling cable music channel. Through the years, MTV® has gone from a channel focused primarily on music videos to include many different types of television programming targeted at contemporary youth culture.

This ceramic still bank takes the form of the anthropomorphized “Scrubbing Bubble” for the SC Johnson cleaning product of the same name. “Scrubbing Bubbles” were first introduced as a spokes characters for Dow Chemical Company’s Bathroom Cleaner during the 1970s. The Scrubbing Bubbles were used in both print and television advertising, often with the tagline that “the scrubbing bubbles work hard so you don’t have to.” When SC Johnson acquired Dow Brands businesses in 1998, they capitalized on the popularity of the spokes character by renaming the cleaner “Scrubbing Bubbles.”

The Scovill Manufacturing Company of Waterbury, Connecticut produced this advertising token around 1959. The Scovill Company was established in 1802 as a button manufacturer and is still in business today. Scovill was an early industrial American innovator, adapting armory manufacturing processes to mass-produce a variety of consumer goods including buttons, daguerreotype mats, medals, coins, and tokens. This token was included in packets of cigarettes vended from Nedicks locations in New York.

The Scovill Manufacturing Company of Waterbury, Connecticut produced this token during the early 20th century, after 1928. Scovill was an early industrial American innovator, adapting armory manufacturing processes to mass-produce a variety of consumer goods including buttons, daguerreotype mats, medals, and tokens.

Reverse: TO DEALERS/ OUR SALESMAN WILL REDEEM THIS TOKE FOR 10¢ WHEN CONDITIONS ON REVERSE SIDE HAVE BEEN COMPLIED WITH. CUSTOMER MUST PAY ANY SALES TAX. VOID IF USE IS PROHIBITED, RESTRICTED OR TAXED. COLGATE-PALMOLIVE CO. JERSEY CITY, N.J.

The Scovill Manufacturing Company of Waterbury, Connecticut produced this discount token during the early 20th century. The Scovill Company was established in 1802 as a button manufacturer and is still in business today. Scovill was an early industrial American innovator, adapting armory manufacturing processes to mass-produce a variety of consumer goods including buttons, daguerreotype mats, medals, coins, and tokens.

Obverse: The legend reads: THE BRASS CENTER/1674/WATERBURY/1924/OF THE WORLD.

Reverse: The legend reads: GOOD FOR 50¢/UPSON, SINGLETON, & Co. on a $5.00/ PURCHASE.

Flat rectangular card with black print. On one side is an image of a young girl washing a young boy's hair, which is covered in shampoo. A calendar for 1910 is on the reverse. A product description reads: "Pure as the pines. Made from Pine-Tar, Glycerine and Sweet Vegetable Oils. Emollient--Healing--Antiseptic."